“August rain: the best of the summer gone, and the new fall not yet born. The odd uneven time.” — Sylvia Plath, journal entry dated 8 August 1952

It’s 61F and pouring outside now at 5 p.m. It’s been raining like this all day and hasn’t been much warmer. I’ve been wearing long pants and purple fleece, drinking cup after cup of jasmine tea, and, yes, there’s a woodstove fire.

And yes, we had s’mores, with dark chocolate and vegetarian (vegan, actually) marshmallows.

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We’ve had a visiting neighbour cat with us since 8 a.m., meowing under our windows shortly after the rain began. She’s been sleeping 90% of the time, first in the bed with me for an hour, then on the love seat in the sitting room (surrounded by windows), then on a guest bed in spouse’s office, on a chair below the fly-tying desk in his office, under a bed in the guest room, and now on the sofa near us and the fire.

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She apparently minds the rain. But I don’t. I walked around without a coat or hood for a little while late this afternoon, collecting images of the rain and mist, the ponding and puddling, the way the limbs are heavy, the vibrancy of the colours.

This odd, uneven time.

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“Well, I’d like to have the ocean / But I’d settle for the rain” — Rosanne Cash, from “World of Strange Design”